Black Canadians and the

Underground Railroad1605-1892

Timeline• 1605: First Black in Canada

The first named Black person to set foot on Canadian soil was Mathieu Da Costa, a free man who was hired as a translator for Samuel de Champlain's 1605 excursion.

• 1628: Slave Boy, First Black Resident of New FranceThe first named enslaved African to reside in Canada was a six-year old boy, the property of Sir David Kirke. The child was sold several times, lastly to Father Paul Le Jeune, and was baptized Catholic and given the name Olivier Le Jeune.

Image: Slave traders packed ships with as many slaves as could be carried.

Timeline

• 1709: Louis XIV Formally Authorizes Slavery in New FranceKing Louis XIV formally authorized slavery in 1709, when he permitted his Canadian subjects to own slaves, "in full proprietorship." There were fewer slave-owners in New France than in the neighbouring English colonies, and few French colonists openly questioned the long-standing practice.

Image: King Louis XIV

Timeline

• 1776 : "Free Negroes" Reach Nova Scotia Canada developed a reputation as a safe haven for Blacks during the American Revolution, 1775-1783. The British promised land, freedom and rights to slaves and free Blacks in exchange for services rendered. Some of the Black Loyalists to reach Nova Scotia belonged to the "Company of Negroes," who left Boston with British troops.

Timeline

• 26-27 July 1784: Canada's First Race-Riot Rocks BirchtownAfter the Revolutionary War, the "Black Pioneers" were among the first settlers in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. They helped build the new settlement. On its fringes they established their own community, "Birchtown." When hundreds of White, disbanded soldiers were forced to accept work at rates competitive with their Black neighbours the ensuing hostility caused a riot.

Image: White soldiers drove the Blacks out of Shelburne.

Timeline

• 1790: Imperial Statute The Imperial Statute of 1790 effectively allowed settlers to bring enslaved persons to Upper Canada. Under the statute, the enslaved had only to be fed and clothed. Any child born of enslaved parents became free at age 25 and anyone who released someone from bondage had to ensure that he/she could be financially independent.

Image: Slave auctioning continued in Canada even after the American War of Independence.

Timeline

• 15 January 1792: The Black Loyalist ExodusThe difficulty of supporting themselves in the face of widespread discrimination convinced many Black Loyalists that they would never find true freedom and equality in Nova Scotia. When offered the opportunity to leave the colony in the 1790s, almost 1200 Blacks left Halifax to relocate to Sierra Leone.

Timeline• 19 June 1793: Simcoe's

Anti-Slave Trade Bill When Simcoe left England to take up his appointment as the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, he pledged never to support discriminatory laws.  On 19 June 1793, Attorney General White introduced Simcoe's anti-slavery measure and it passed, although it was not a total ban on slavery but a gradual prohibition. 

Image: John Graves Simcoe, first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, helped to abolish slavery in Canada in 1793

Timeline• 21 July 1812: Company of

"Coloured" Troops CommissionedIn the summer of 1812, Black Loyalist Richard Pierpoint petitioned the government of Upper Canada to raise a company of Black troops to help protect the Niagara frontier. After some debate, the government agreed. A company of Blacks was formed under the command of a White officer, Captain Robert Runchey Sr.

• 1812-1815: The "Coloured Troops" and the War of 1812Thousands of Black volunteers fought for the British during the War of 1812.  Fearing American conquest (and the return to slavery), many Blacks in Upper Canada served heroically in coloured and regular regiments. The British promise of freedom and land united many escaped slaves under the British flag.

Image: After the War of 1812, over 500 Black people were settled at Hammonds Plains. This painting, c1835, shows a Black family on the Hammonds Plains Road, with Bedford Basin in the background.(

Timeline• February-May 1851: Canadians

React to Fugitive Slave ActThe passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in the United States led to the formation of an larger and more durable antislavery society in Canada. Canadians publicly debated "the slavery question"; George Brown's Toronto Globe chastised its journalistic opposition for being soft on slavery; and individuals protested Canadian support of the American antislavery movement.

• 26 February 1851: Formation of Canadian Anti-Slavery SocietyThe number of abolitionist sympathizers grew in Canada in the 1850s-1860s. As more Black refugees entered Canada, sympathizers formed organizations and committees to influence public opinion and help freedom-seekers make their way north. On 26 February 1851, the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada was formed, "to aid in the extinction of Slavery all over the world."

Timeline• 1850s: Harriet Tubman, fugitive

slave, underground railroad conductor, abolitionist, spy, soldier, nurse , aka “Black Moses Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland in 1820. She escaped in 1849 and made at least 19 return trips to the South to guide fugitives to the Northern states and freedom. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act made it dangerous for runaways to remain in the North. Harriet made 11 trips to Canada leading more than 300 Underground Railway "passengers" to Canada. They moved only at night, sheltering in barns, chimneys and haystacks. She allowed no dropping out or turning back. She drew a pistol on one discouraged fugitive, saying, "Move or die." He and the rest of the group reached Canada in safety.

Timeline

• 24 March 1853: Provincial Freeman Founded by Mary Ann and Isaac ShaddMary Ann Shadd was an educated Black woman who had opened a Black school in Wilmington, Delaware. She and her brother Isaac fled to Windsor after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The Shadds founded the abolitionist newspaper the Provincial Freeman Mary Ann Shadd was the first African-American woman publisher in North America.

Timeline

• 26 April 1858: First Black Californians Arrive in BCOn the invitation of James Douglas, the governor of British Columbia, the first ship carrying Black Californians landed in Victoria on 26 April 1858. By summer's end, more than 800 Black settlers had arrived. While government legislation suggested that equality prevailed, in truth, convention and little enforcement allowed acceptance to give way to segregation.

Timeline

• 1866: First Black Politician in CanadaShortly after arriving in Victoria in 1858, Mifflin Gibbs established a business. In 1861, he won public praise for helping to organize a Black militia and decided to run for public office. After an unsuccessful attempt in 1862, Gibbs was elected to the Victoria Town Council in 1866, the first Black politician in Canada.

Timeline

• 21 November 1892: Canada's First Black Physician Named Aide-de-CampAnderson Abbot became Canada's first Black physician in 1861. He served as one of only eight Black surgeons in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was distinguished by being appointed aide-de-camp of the New York Commanding Officers Dept., the highest military honour bestowed to that time on a Black person in North America.

Enslavement

• Enslavement was forced on Africans in many places, including the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, South America, and Canada. From the 1400s to the 1800s, slavery primarily relied on the capture and free labour of Black or African peoples. They were forced to be slaves, could expect to remain slaves for life, and any children they had could expect to be slaves for life.

Image: A typical slave auction in the New World. Although these slaves appear to be sold together as a family, this typically was not the case. In fact, many families were broken up and never reunited

Enslavement• Slave "castles" housed the

captured Africans until slave ships arrived to collect them. Africans from diverse societies, with different languages and religions, were shackled together. Purchasers from Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Britain, and France selected the healthiest and strongest men, women, and children who could survive the crossing to the New World. The death rate en route typically was 40%. As many as 20 million Black people were taken from Africa during this time. This African Holocaust devastated societies within Africa and crippled African identity elsewhere.

Enslavement in New France and Québec

• The first enslaved people in Canada were the panis, or Pawnee Indians, who were preferred by the French. The first named African enslaved person was Olivier Le Jeune, who arrived from Madagascar in 1628.

• From 1628 until the end of the French regime in 1759, the number of enslaved Africans grew to about 1500. This was due to the support provided by the 1685 Code Noir, making the use of enslaved Africans for economic purposes acceptable in the colonies; by 1709 slavery was legal in New France. Enslaved Africans were brought into Canada from the French West Indies or from British colonies; most were held near Montréal and Québec City as well as Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia. They worked as farmhands and domestic servants and were often treated poorly.

Marie-Joseph Angélique

Enslavement in British Columbia

• Enslaved Africans were in British Columbia as part of fur-trading, survey, exploration, or scouting activities. A few were connected to the Hudson's Bay Company. Some early Black arrivals to British Columbia may also have been Underground Railroad survivors.

• However, the first groups of people of African origin to arrive in British Columbia were free Black people. In the United States, Oregon passed laws making slavery illegal in 1844 but also forcing Blacks to leave the state. If they did not leave promptly, they were subjected to the "Lash Law," beaten with about 25 lashes every six months until they left, or were forced to work, laws that were intended to drive free Blacks out of the state. Many left for British Columbia. However, the largest early group of African-Americans to land in British Columbia arrived after repressive laws were passed in California directed at Black people in 1858.

Early Black Communities • The earliest Black communities

were established in the Maritime Provinces; Birchtown became the largest settlement of free Africans outside Africa. The first large wave of Africans to arrive in Canada were free Black Loyalists invited by the British government and promised land, provisions, and freedom for their support during the American War of Independence. Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, invited all male slaves owned by Rebels to join the British cause, promising them freedom. As losses mounted, Henry Clinton, the British Commander-in-Chief, invited all slaves to join the British, again promising freedom. At least 3500 Blacks supported the British and were landed in Canada, 10% of all Loyalists.

Abolition of Slavery

• When the British resumed control of Canada in 1759, they allowed slavery to continue. There was growing resistance to slavery since it was becoming clear that there were costs to consider; slavery affected the high moral ground that many used to guide their lives.

• When Ontario's first lieutenant-governor John Graves Simcoe, who had been involved in the abolition movement in England, learned that Chloë Cooley, an enslaved African woman in the Niagara area, was forcibly bound and rowed across the river to be sold to American slave traders, he was rightly concerned. In 1793, Simcoe introduced the Upper Canadian Act Against Slavery to end slavery but the resulting compromise only slowed it down. Africans could no longer be imported into Canada; slaves already here had to be properly clothed and fed, and children born of an enslaved woman would be free upon their 25th birthdays.

Abolition of Slavery• It was not until the passing in

England of the British Imperial Act of 1833 (effective 1 August 1834 in Canada and other British-controlled areas) that lifelong enslavement was abolished. It influenced other nations to do the same. With abolition, slave owners were compensated for the loss of their “property”; Africans were never repaid for the loss of their history, culture, heritage, homeland, languages, or their years of unpaid labour. It was felt that freedom for Black people was enough.

Underground “Secret” Railroad

• Enslaved peoples resisted their bondage, beginning upon their capture in Africa, and continuing on the slave ships going to the New World and during their new lives as slaves. Since enslavement was connected to having dark skin, where could they go if they escaped? How could they avoid being caught? It required organization and many people cooperating. Such a system—the Underground Railroad—began about the 1830s and continued until after the end of the American Civil War.

• Because of its secretive nature, no one knows for sure exactly how many people it saved, but estimates suggest between 30,000 and 100,000 African-Americans used the Underground Railroad or were inspired by it to enter Canada.

Underground Railroad• The Underground Railroad was

not a real train; it was named after the fastest transportation at the time. It was called “underground” because it was secret. Code words helped to throw off anyone looking for “runaways”: a “station” was a safe house; a “station master” was the owner/manager of the safe house; “cargo” referred to the enslaved African; the “track” was the route; and a “conductor” was the person who led a group to safety. Images from spirituals, the religious songs of slaves, were used to inspire or to convey information. Other signs were discreetly displayed to alert freedom seekers about routes and safety.

The Underground Railroad Routes